


More Myself Than I

by TrantRazber



Series: A Heart As Deep [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angry Sex, Blowjobs, Exhibitionism, Fluff, M/M, Reaper 76, Shower Sex, angsty porn, b/c a 17 y/o jesse is not what i'm here for right now, best part of being commander is you can fuck on the job and no one can say shit, blackwatch jesse except he's older, edge lord gabriel reyes, gabe has ptsd y'all, jack morrison has a lot of feelings, jack morrison is a possessive guy, jesse mccree is a ridiculous cowboy, jesse mccree is the "other woman", jesse mccree is very good at tumbling, jesse mccree loves sucking cock, non-canon timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:24:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrantRazber/pseuds/TrantRazber
Summary: A little exploration into the layered relationship between Gabriel Reyes and Jack Morrison, which Jesse McCree finds himself dubiously perched in the middle of. The bond that Jack and Gabe have is more than love or life or death - they are united, inseparable and yet at odds, and they both must fight the demons of doubt in war time (while McCree cleans his boots and provides moral support).





	1. Die, Die, Die

**Author's Note:**

> Hi y'all, since my last fic got such a good reception and this has been kicking around in my brain for a while I thought I'd get a start on it here. This will probably be at least as long as the other one, with the same McCree/Gabe/Jack we see as in my other one, and there will definitely be more sexytimez between some if not all of the parties involved. This one is definitely more angsty, but hey, it's my edgelord baby, but don't worry - our golden hearted goof Jesse is still around for a little lightening of the mood now and then.
> 
> NOTE: for the purposes of this fic, while the canon timeline has Jesse McCree as a teenager, the Jesse in this fic series is older - think late twenties/thirty-something. sorry y'all, no teenage Jesse/thirty-something y/o Gabe action happening here pls carry on

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabe is adrift in the chaos of his past and cannot find where he ends and Jack begins.

They call it brotherhood – but Gabe knows better. When the world is rushing to swallow you up, all chaos and cacophony, your brain spinning in and out of military training and the basic desire to disappear completely like it’s a rogue radio tuner, whoever is beside you in those moments isn’t a _sibling_.

He fumbles with his gun, the heartbeat in his ears somehow faster, louder, realer than the staccato insistence of bullets around them. Eichenwalde is buckling like a kingdom of dominoes beneath a sea of metallic groaning, erupting in cries that sound like rooftops crashing down and comets of mortar embedding themselves into the earth, and throats, and circuitry.

At the center of this vortex Gabe finds himself, can only find himself, so the shoulder against his and the blonde in the corner of his eye and the sounds of pulse munitions echoing in the spaces when his trigger finger is stalled are all still _him_ – _his own_.

Jack and Gabe, they aren’t brothers; in these moments they are the same, feeling the same, thinking the same, one goal, one word: _die_.

It’s always like this.

It’s always like this.

They’re running, but not away – _into_ to the vortex, shoulder to shoulder, moving forward in the symphony of carnage beneath the orange rooftops of Eichenwalde, orange and burning all around them impossibly bright.

When Jack speaks he hears him from the inside: _“There!”_

Gabe’s body knows where to go before he does, only seeing the incoming pulse rocket a second after it has whizzed by his side. Then they run again, leaving lines of scrap in their wake, moving the same, thinking the same, one intention: _die_.

It’s always like this.

It’s always like this.

Suddenly he’s breathless, the world still around them, a half-crumbled wall at his back to shield from the barrage of sound without.

Jack is gone, the dull pressure from where he had been at Gabe’s shoulder now absent in the way that it might feel to suddenly have one less limb, one less lung, one less heart.

Heart.

There’s a gun on his heart - not the mutation of metal from an omnic about to take him out - a gun.

Jack’s gun.

He can’t look up, can’t look away from the gun, can’t catch his breath to ask “Why?”

He is fixed on the wall by the gun like a pinned specimen. This time, when Jack talks, it comes from the outside, from the gun, and he says in a voice Gabe almost doesn’t recognize: “ _Die_.”

It’s always like this.

. . .

Gabe woke up when the gun went off, the same as always. He woke breathless and choking for air, while the world came back to him, the same as always. This wasn't Eichenwalde. Jack wasn't here, either. He was Commander Gabriel Reyes of Blackwatch, currently stationed at Watchpoint: Gibraltar, and it was – Gabe checked the clock beside his bed – 11:44 in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you like this short little prologue! Stick around for more shortly!! Please feel free to leave any thoughts or reactions, I love reading what you have to say. :)


	2. Every Day Is Like Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabe definitely isn't thinking about Jack at all and looks to our favorite cowboy to distract him from this, who he finds doing some /very/ serious training.

“ _Mierda,_ ” Gabe mumbled with exhaustion at the holo-clock beside him as if it might answer for this offense, one hand on his glistening forehead. _That fucking dream_. Waking up from it felt like waking up to a kick in the gut, all the wind from his body and a panic in his heart and throat like he’d never felt before.

Like he didn’t want to feel again, rather.

It was gripping but it was over now, and he was reluctant to revisit the images still burned into his brain: little glimpses here and there threatening to flood back to him of what he’d been seeing so vividly just a few minutes before.

He didn’t want to relive it again. Fucking nightmares. Gabe hadn’t slept in this late in he-didn’t-know-how-long, and immediately the anger and the bitterness that he felt at his unconscious mind was re-directed at the rest of the world for allowing this to happen.

_Why the fuck didn’t someone wake him up?_

The more obvious question, which was “why did he forget to set an alarm last night”, was pushed away along with the thought of anything other than finding someone to glare at for letting him sleep nearly ‘til noon in the middle of a fucking war crisis. Nevermind that Blackwatch was a specialty crew – he was their fucking Commander!

By this time Gabe had pulled himself from bed, having left it in the same pristine condition it was in when he entered it the night before thanks to years of military training that meant his sheets were always as pristine as his guns. It gave him time to leave his body, time to fight the gun shots echoing in his ears, threatening to descend upon him in his waking hours.

He folded the sheets, creased the sounds away, and there was silence.

A cool splash of water on his face and something minty swished around in his mouth was the best Gabe could do for morning hygiene at the moment, his mind anywhere but with himself, some quiet whisper that told him he needed to _do_ _something_. Needed to handle “ _it”_ : this hollow pit in the back of his mind that threatened to yawn open wide and suck him up.

Gabe was the kind of man who was predictable to everyone but himself, so it wasn’t a surprise to Jesse McCree when his Commander’s grumpy expression showed up in the middle of some very important training. For Gabe’s part, he wasn’t sure why he’d ended up here, having only the vague inclination to find someone from his team and make sure they hadn’t forgotten about their Commander.

But it was Gabe’s turn to be unsurprised all the same, given that McCree’s form of “training” was, as it appeared, to be practicing a series of tumbles to and fro on the sparring mats, dressed down in exercise clothing save for the cowboy boots on his feet, the prodigal hat on his head, and one of the fattest cigars Gabriel had ever seen clenched between his teeth. 

He somehow managed to keep it in place even when rolling headfirst, and it was there still when he landed and sprang to his feet with a chuckle that Gabe was fairly certain had to be involuntary at this point, a chuckle that probably haunted many of McCree’s former acquaintances.

“Mornin’ _, jefe_ ,” Jesse offered with a wink and a smile between tumbles, still talking around the cigar, before making another somersault to the side this time.

Gabe responded simply: “McCree,” in his scratchiest of Commander Reyes voices, which produced a soft but nervous laugh from the cowboy as a result. He was poised to launch into some kind of questioning as to why no one had been to wake him this morning when the words froze in this throat and turned into-

“What the hell are you _doing_?”

Seriously – _what the hell was he doing_?

This, of course, only elicited a further string of warm chuckles from the slightly winded Jesse McCree, and he stopped his trick-tumbling for a moment to breathlessly puff on the cigar. It was only now that Gabe realized his strange subordinate had been holding his right hand like a pretend gun, the pointer finger aiming right for Gabe there where he held beside his hip as if it were the real thing.

“Gotta keep nimble, _jefe_. You know that.” Here he brought the cigar from his whiskered lips and let out an exhale of smoke without so much as a cough. “Just basic trainin’.” Jesse grinned with a tiny shrug, and scratched at his chin laconically. “You sleep well?” There was just enough of a twinkle in his eye when he asked it to get that old familiar angry itch back into Gabe’s shoulders but he swallowed the urge to throttle the cowboy.

“Just make sure you don’t get ash all over the mats, _pendejo_ ,” Gabe growled instead, ignoring the question entirely and sitting down on a bench on the wall, disarmed by McCree in a way he should be used to by now.

“You come all the way down here just to tell me that?” McCree asked with that slow Southern lilt of his like a song, hands on his hips (he’d put the finger-gun away, apparently), cigar between his lips. “Shoot, I sure am flattered.” He was looking Gabe up and down curiously, and again Gabe chose to think about anything except why he was doing that.

He was silent for a beat, swallowing some feeling of guilt or shame that was trying to creep up like all the rest.

“No.”

Gabe parted his knees where he sat; at some point his own hands had settled to rest on his thighs and he’d begun half-consciously picking at the cotton of his sweatpants.

“Didn’t think so, partner.” McCree smirked, crushed the cigar on his boot, and tossed it into an idle waste bin like he’d planned this whole thing. Jesse did everything shamelessly: he could tumble with a cigar in his mouth, clean any number of assorted fashion boots and accessories to a shine, utter the most ridiculous similes Gabe had ever heard, or go from talking to his Commander to sweetly kissing his neck all without shame or hesitance.

The warmth was nice, and welcome, and Gabe would admit now to himself that this was what he had came here for, that this was what he had needed for a little while to push the gunshots and the sickening feeling of betrayal away.

Gabe let this happen for a while, his hands finding a home on Jesse’s back and side, encouraging him softly with a murmur of satisfaction until: “Enough, _vaquero_.” He shoved him back slightly, stood up himself, and in an instant had Jesse’s back up against the wall, his hands on McCree’s stomach now beneath the tank-top he’d been rolling in and his lips on the corner of his mouth, his jaw, his neck, his collar bones. Jesse always tasted like sweat and leather.

Another chuckle, this time breathless, came from McCree and he just hung his arms around either of Gabe’s shoulders like a poncho hangs on a rack. “I should let you sleep in more often, partner,” Jesse drawled, then hissed when Gabe answered it with a soft bite. He pulled back, gripping McCree’s face softly but fast with one hand, eyeing him with the hope that Jesse won’t make Gabe _actually_ tell him to just shut the fuck up about it already.

Instead, Gabe chose to ask: “Why don’t you hit the showers, recruit?”

It was more of a genuine question than most of the “questions” Commander Reyes asked, but not one he expected Jesse to turn down. Still, he could.

“Sure, boss,” Jesse replied with a grin, unreadable smiling eyes watching Gabe’s face like a classic painting from where he was against the wall. Gabe released him, moved away, the slightest of imperceptible smiles on his face which Jesse knew to say nothing about. He pulled his shirt off, the one he’d put on only twenty-some-minutes ago in a daze, and Jesse mimicked him as they both moved towards the showers in the next room.

“Oh, you’re comin’ too, _jefe_?” Jesse joked, as if he didn’t know, turning to look at him with his hat and his outlaw-grin still on. Jesse seemed to be without any intention of recognizing how strange it might be to have this conversation while he was taking off his mechanical arm.

“Didn’t get my shower this morning,” Gabe explained, peeling off his boots, his socks, his pants, and then turning on the water for one of the communal showerheads while he waited for Jesse to methodically place his treasured boots in precisely the correct place on the shoe rack. Finally stripping himself bare he stepped under the hot water and closed his eyes, letting it run over him like sunshine or bleach.

Then there were hands on his sides, wrapping round from behind him and over his chest, pulling back and running down to his hips, and a slightly scratchy cowboy cheek between his shoulder blades. “Mmh,” Jesse mumbled, his body warm and wet and pressed up against Gabe now. “Those cloves you smoke might not be slick n’ tasty as a cigar, but they sure do smell nice. You know how to reward a man for some proper tumblin’.”

Gabe was good by now at ignoring Jesse when he wanted to – when he needed to. He turned round with the intention to shut him up, and this came in the form of slow, sloppy kisses under the warm water, his hands settling sweetly on the small of Jesse’s back so that he could now and then reach for his ass with perfect ease (this won him some very agreeable sounds from the cowboy, much better than talking about tumbling and cigars).

Gabe ran a hand through Jesse’s hair and tugged, momentarily taking advantage of this very rare version of McCree _sans_ hat, which produced a kind of growl from McCree that Gabe couldn’t remember hearing before. This time it was Gabe who chuckled deep in his throat, against Jesse’s lips, and Jesse pulled away (a little breathless) so that he could look his Commander in the eyes when he reached between Gabriel’s legs with one hand and just _rubbed_ with languid slowness.

“ _Dios_ ,” Gabe muttered, his eyes shutting and hands groping again for Jesse’s round little ass. This was warm. This was real. This was _good_.

“Shit, boss.” McCree purred the words in his ear, lips brushing against his wet skin. “Maybe I oughta cut to the chase quicker next time, huh?” Gabe was hard and heavy in his hand and there wasn’t much more that could motivate Jesse to action than something like _that_. The way Gabe sucked in air and curled his fingers into Jesse’s skin with each stroke was encouragement beyond any kind of training or mission incentive.

Suddenly Jesse had dropped to his knees on the tile floor, having spent only a second or two sucking at Gabe’s collarbones and chest, and when Gabe experimentally tugged on his hair again Jesse set to sucking on his inner thigh with little nibbles and kisses like it was the only thing he could think to do. Gabe inhaled sharply and moaned an exhaling breath. It was all he could do not to pull Jesse’s hair out from impatience, and still Jesse sucked and kissed and bit.

McCree’s kisses moved more inward still until finally, _finally_ , he pressed his tongue to the base of Gabe’s cock and then carefully planted a trail of wet kisses to the head at which point Gabe managed to open his eyes and look down at what a pretty picture Jesse made on his knees, Jesse’s own erection eager but ignored in favor of wrapping his lips around Gabe’s wet length and sucking.

 _Dios mio_ , he looked good like that, face all flushed, hair wet against his face, eyes closed and head moving in time with his hand so that no inch of Gabe went untouched. “Fuck,” Gabe growled. Jesse’s mouth was hot and _ambitious,_ and every time Gabe tightened his grip in the cowboy’s hair for a second it made him moan and squirm around the cock in his mouth with fervor.

“Fuck, _vaquero_ ,” Gabe repeated, his hips thrusting a little and in doing so they just touched the back of Jesse’s throat which set them both to groaning. “I’m gonna- come if you-“ Gabe babbled a warning, his knees threatened to shake.

When he looked down again through half-lidded eyes, Jesse’s face was wet from the shower and his eyes rimmed with wetness from exertion, his face pink beneath tanned cheeks, and Jesse looked up at him from under those brown eyelashes so perfectly poised on the shower floor.

It was too much.

The rush of Gabe’s orgasm was louder than the sound of the water pouring over them, drowned out everything, everything from before, everything that would be; in those few moments that stretched on he was just white heat and raw feeling. His thighs shook and by the time his hips had stopped bucking his hand was _still_ clenched in a whimpering Jesse’s hair and he had to consciously let go even before he’d caught his breath.

When his vision refocused, Jesse was wiping at his mouth.

Gabe offered a hand to help him back to his feet, which he took, and then Gabe watched Jesse open his mouth and gargle a little of the shower water before spitting it into the drain, giving Gabe a little grin of satisfaction.

 _Fucking vaquero_ , Gabe thought to himself, feeling a thousand times lighter since he’d woken up in a panic this morning.

He lazily recalled his anger at having been left alone to sleep late while he was reaching for Jesse’s hips to pull him close and run a hand over his sun-kissed thigh.

“Why did you let me sleep so long, _cabr _ó_ n_?” Gabe asked, looking Jesse in the eye the best he could despite the way Jesse’s eyelids were fluttering now that Gabe was ghosting his fingers up the length of his ignored cock.

“Hell, partner,” Jesse managed, his voice thick and choked under the weight of the water and his own desire. “It’s Sunday, after all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here it is, some HOT ACTION right off the bat. Hope y'all enjoy these two, and we'll see where Gabe goes next!!! Thanks for reading friends~*~


	3. Soldado

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack finds Gabe and Gabe tries to find Jack even when he is right there in front of him.

Gabriel had enjoyed jerking McCree off in the shower that morning (or afternoon as it had ended up), his anger and his cerebral itch seeming to leave him after so much time spent in the presence of that fucking _vaquero_. He had done it languid and slow, stretching Jesse’s sweet moans for as long as he could like the man was some kind of musical instrument Reyes was trying to master. McCree had come in his hand, hard and sudden compared to the way Gabe had stroked him, and afterward (his knees still half-buckled and his weight in Gabe’s arm) he looked up at Gabe with those amber bedroom eyes and said: “Damn fine way to spend a Sunday, partner.”

It wasn’t new – the whole thing with McCree. It wasn’t exactly old either, not like – like with others. It was easy, and it was simple, and sometimes it made the nightmares stop but at least it always took his mind off it; the cowboy’s goofy Wanted Poster grin always cracked Gabe when he wasn’t expecting it. He could see it a hundred times and on the hundred and first Gabe would find it disarmingly precious.

_Fucking cowboy._

Later when he passed Jack in the halls, still wet from his shower, he made some sarcastic jab at Gabe for being “lazy”. He said it in his Jack voice – not “Strike Commander Morrison” – but Gabe could only mutter some half-assed retort in Spanish and avoid his eyes, afraid that he might see the burning rooftops of Eichenwalde in them still. Sometimes Gabe thought he preferred to be kept at arm's length from Jack. Recently when he met with Jack for debriefs, Jack kept his Commander voice on - kept things strict. Gabe followed suit and together Blackwatch and Overwatch outlined important action that would be carried out over the next few weeks, including a few training simulations that would pit the two teams against each other.

They stood close to one another over the tactical maps, Gabe watching Jack’s hands pointing here and here and here, Jack watching Gabe’s shoulders when he pushed the figures across the gridded holo-map. They used words like “rendezvous” and “detonate” and “minimum casualty risk” and talked like they’d had their names drawn out of a hat and ended up here together at random. It was easiest that way. It was better, that way.

That night Gabe fell asleep early, the few moments that he’d allowed himself on the bed after today had turned into lost time. Jack told him to die in his dreams, again, looked him in the eye that time, only from behind his tactical visor like he was reading a message on the screen. This time when the gun went off Jack fired one, two, three times into Gabe’s heart before he woke up gasping for breath: _bang, bang, bang._

He coughed and spluttered around the air catching in his throat, finding himself upright and gripping the top blanket on his bed. The sun was gone and the holo-clock was casting the blue numbers 00:06 into the darkness with ominous certainty. His room was dim, and still clean given that he had walked in from his workout, kicked his boots off, and thrown himself directly onto the bed where he now lay. Through the slatted blinds on the beveled window on the far side of the room he could see the twinkling of stars and satellites far off but still orbiting. Gabe’s grip on the bedding slackened, then-

_Bang, bang, bang_.

It was coming from his door; a familiar knock that he hadn’t understood under the haze of sleep.

He understood it now.

Before Gabe could realize, he was getting up, walking to the door. The lights were still out. He rubbed at his eyes and opened it, the familiar face on the other side too real compared to where he had been just minutes before.

“Nice of you to roll out of bed, Reyes,” Jack teased, all dimpled smiles and blonde hair and smoothly shaven cheeks. He was leaning on the doorframe a little, one knee bent just enough to be telling. “I was about to wake up the whole block.”

“The whole block” would, at this part of the station, basically mean all of Gabe’s crew – Genji, McCree, all his subordinates. Gabe scoffed a little at the idea and let that be his reply, moving out of the way to let Jack inside just as the Strike Commander moved to go in, like this was some little waltz they’d danced before.

He closed it behind Jack, didn’t bother to turn on any lights – the light from the clock and the sentry lights outside his window flooding in through the blinds meant there was more than enough light to see by - and he watched a blue-tinted Jack sit himself down on the bed like it was his own and look Gabe up and down with a smile he didn’t see much outside of this context.

Outside of Jack being a little tipsy, being a little nostalgic, being a little vulnerable. Jack was dressed in a pristine white muscle-tee, with some relaxed workout pants on; the kind of outfit he stayed up reading dossiers in by the light of his bedside lamp. This wasn’t Strike Commander Morrison. This was just-

“Jack,” Gabe heard himself say it, felt himself move closer so that their knees were touching; the blue light from the clock cast Jack’s yellow hair in cool tones, and his pale skin looked like ice. Jack just smiled up at him from the bed, and laid out on his back, elbows propping him up where he lay looking at Gabe like they were in boot camp again.

“Gabriel,” Jack mocked, the smirk on his face pushing a familiar dimple just faintly into his cheek. In one fluid motion he sat up, grabbed Gabe by the shirt, and, laying down again, pulled him onto the bed with him so that Gabe was over him, one knee on either side of Jack’s waist now.

“You smell like-“ Gabe dipped his face into the crook of Jack’s neck and rubbed his nose along the curve and up behind his ear. “Whiskey and smoke, _soldado_.” He couldn’t remember the last time he saw Jack drink whiskey – but the man was entitled to do whatever he liked regardless of how often Gabe knew him to do it. It wasn’t any of his business.

Jack laughed underneath him, warm and without thought for what it sounded like or who was watching; a sound that ran down Gabe’s spine and settled there. Gabe felt Jack’s hands settle on his sides just above his hips and he sat back then, straddling his Strike Commander like they were just two recruits and not-

“And you smell like sweat and ass,” Jack fired back before he could finish his thought, that Indiana-farm-boy-face of his almost innocent in this light. Without his gun, his visor, his learned command presence, Jack looked like a different person.

“Yeah, well I-“ Gabe began to explain when Jack lifted his hips from the bed, goosing Gabe where he sat straddling him and causing him to lurch forward a little so that they were face to face again.

“Yeah, well, you?” Jack asked, that dimple sitting steadfast on his face, his hands toying with Gabe’s shirt and the waistband of his pants. In the stillness of these moments, Gabe couldn’t reconcile the man who repeatedly shot him in his dreams with the one that peered up at him from under half-lidded eyes in front of him now.

“ _Nada, chingado._ ”

Gabe was the one to kiss Jack first, warm and sweet and smooth, Jack’s lips parting like the ocean before him. The kiss was lazy to begin with, the two of them just enjoying each other outside of the warring world on their shoulders, but then Jack made a sound against his mouth like a hungry plea and all of a sudden he was biting Gabe’s lip and curling his fingers against his back where he’d slipped a hand beneath his shirt and then they were moving, Jack pushing him off and over and Gabe capitulating like it was the next step of this dance.

From this new position on his back, he could see Jack’s flushed cheeks for just a second before he bent to suck and kiss at Gabe’s neck, one hand pushing up his shirt at the same time as if there just wasn’t a fast enough way to get to his skin. Jack moved quickly over Gabe’s newly exposed chest, stopping just to press his tongue against Gabe’s nipple, followed by a rough kiss in the same spot that won him a throaty groan for his effort.

Gabe understood that the time for talking was over, now, and so to distract himself from the way Jack was doing his best to get him to repeat that little sound he had to do something with his hands: run them over Jack’s shoulders, down his back, up his sides, anything so that he wasn’t twisting them in the sheets instead.

This was real.

This was good.

A sudden grazing of Jack’s teeth against his neck and the feeling of a hand hot on his thigh through his pants told Gabe pretty well where to put his hands: he gripped Jack’s hips and bucked upwards, at the same time pulling him down into the friction. Jack let out a moan like a sacred hymn and for a second Gabe saw his eyes go shut with the effort.

“Fuck, Gabe-“ Jack muttered in an attempt to regain himself, but all it seemed to do was redirect his attention entirely because he pulled up from the kisses and the bites then and, leaning back, began to tug rather insistently on Gabe’s pants with both hands. “Off, off, off,” Jack chanted with a little laugh hidden somewhere in the intoxicated lustful babbling.

“ _Oye_ , farm boy, _hang on_ -“ Gabe managed, his own laughter sounding foreign to his ears but not unrecognizable. He tried his best to help Jack, lifting his hips when prompted and trying not to sound too fucking relieved to have them off but _shit_ it did feel nice the way Jack was kissing at his hip bones even if they still had a layer of boxer-briefs to go between them.

If Gabe hadn’t known better, he would have sworn Jack was _nuzzling_ his thighs, kissing and sucking the soft skin with his eyes closed.

“That’s better,” Gabe heard him murmur against his skin, and he let his head drop back on the bed, and his eyes close, and his fear and his anger and his desire to disappear all dropped away and closed with them.

_This_ was real.

This was _good_.

Behind his eyes, Gabe could see a younger Jack stealing kisses between drills and passing moments of heat and clothes and prayers and cum fumbled between them. He breathed:

in-

out-

and then all at once the kisses, the nuzzling- stopped. Gone.

_Bang_.

Before Gabe could open his eyes, Jack was up and off of him, leaving him there on the bed half-hard and with his pants down to his knees.

“It’s late,” Jack mumbled, as if that was an explanation for his sudden change, and Gabe too confused to do anything but stare at him and try and think of words that could make things go back to the way they were a second ago just laid there and let it happen. Jack mumbled more words that sounded like: “Training operation tomorrow,” and then the door closed behind him with a click.

_This was over._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awww fuck Jack why u gotta be like that boi :c who knows why he bolted but u can be sure we'll find out!!!!  
> these boys have man feelings that are difficult and real  
> thx everyone for reading so far!! i didn't expect this to be out so soon but i've been rly having fun with it :3  
> P.s. I feel like we've never had canon imagery of Jack really smiling therefore I've given him dimples because fuck u that's why


	4. Por Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack and Gabe are running opposing teams during a routine training drill, after an awkward night that's left Gabe frustrated and out for a win.

When Jack left that night, he took something with him. Gabe stayed there on his bed under the blue light of the holo-clock, right where Jack had walked away from him, somewhere between dazed and humiliated. Now and then his mind played the scene on repeat: the last few minutes of touching and sloppy kisses before he’d found himself alone and with his pants around his ankles, half-hard and fully fucking confused. He could hear Jack’s half-assed excuse about it being late, in the same voice that had been asking him to take his pants off just moments before.

After deciding that it wasn’t anything he could solve – that it must be some super soldier shit Morrison would have to work through on his own – Gabe left his clothes in a pile and moved like a ghost in and out of the shower, then back to bed.

He didn’t dream at all that night and when the alarm woke him the next morning, his shoulders were up to his neck, his movements stiff and unyielding like he was trying to bend steel every time he tried to lift his arms too high.

The blue holo-clock shined on indifferently, reminding him of a particular pair of eyes he didn’t want to look into today, but inevitably would have to. With any luck they’d be behind that stupid fucking visor, Gabe thought, before dismissing the topic altogether.

The morning came on sluggish and slow; they had a training exercise scheduled that afternoon and Gabe knew if he didn’t play the part of Commander he’d have more to deal with than sore muscles and being walked out on.

Blackwatch’s team debriefings tended to go on notoriously long, not in the least because McCree took them as an opportunity to question every detail he thought he could get away with. Often, Gabe wondered how he managed to be a part of _any_ gang, Deadeye or otherwise, but figured (or hoped) a band of outlaws had to operate differently from a group of military-trained correspondents.

This was a distinction he did his best to cling to when faced with the more dubious assignments they were given, or mornings like this when McCree seemed to wake up like the most Southern god damn ray of sunshine he’d ever seen. More than once he had to shut the cowboy up with some biting command he would have rather not had to make, and even then Jesse only seemed to keep grinning through it all, that telltale sparkle in the cowboy’s eyes that made Gabe’s knuckles go white on his fists.

In the interest of time and his own sanity, Gabe chose pointedly not to investigate his subordinate’s good mood any further. It was as likely as anything that McCree had simply found a pair of boots he’d thought he’d lost, anyway.

By the time the debriefing was done, between policing McCree and dodging unknowable glowering glances from the moody and stoic Genji, Gabe was feeling more like himself. _El jefe_. This feeling doubled-down by the time he had finished cleaning and loading his shotguns with the training rounds, so that by the time they were out of the barracks and under the peaceful Gibraltar sun, Gabe’s blood was practically buzzing in his veins with anticipation.

It was a simple enough training exercise: Overwatch strike team was to move the payload from one side of the base to the other. Blackwatch strike team was to stop them. Training rounds meant that a hit would definitely wind you, and enough of them were grounds to tap out.

Dr. Ziegler had graciously (if not a bit eagerly) accepted the opportunity to remain on call in the on-site infirmary in order to pick up the pieces at the end as team members dropped out. Gabe recognized the particular flash of exasperated relief that flashed over her eyes when she was given this option, and reminded himself for the millionth time to bring her some extra helpings of sweet Umm Ali next time Ana made some of the delicious pudding (or, more likely, have someone bring them to her _for_ him, anonymously).

The downtime that Angela craved as an antidote to wartime stress worked in reverse for Gabe. His fingers clutched his guns, flexed and released, his pulse fluttering with wild inconsistency that didn’t show on his face. It pushed everything else out, even the crackling Southern sarcasm that was streaming into his ear from the earpiece that connected their team.

“You bunch of lollygaggers ready for this?” McCree’s voice chimed in an almost sing-song fashion, directly into his consciousness. Somehow, the _vaquero_ was that much more obnoxious when you couldn’t see his face.

The Blackwatch team had split and scattered across a tactical area meant to bottleneck the payload as it moved up; there were multiple choke points for them to organize around should the first one fall but for now Gabe was waiting off to the side behind one of the portable command centers stationed outside the main enclosure, ready to ambush and flank any scragglers who tried to get a jump on them (usually this was Ana, who had a particular habit of sleep darting him the second his back was turned before disappearing back into the fray).

“ _Hold your position, McCree,_ ” Gabe hissed into the mic, his back to the rocks and sounds of the ocean crashing against them, and all the rest of the world beyond that. “Simulation goes live in zero-dark-thirty. Got that?”

A series of affirmatives buzzed back to him, not the least notable of which was McCree’s unnecessarily long, “Tennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn-fourrrrrrr, good buddy.”

The seconds seemed to pass like sand beneath the undertow of the waves at his back, and he habitually counted down the last five seconds over coms for the rest of the team. He was only moderately surprised when he didn’t hear Jesse _yee-haw_ ing over his own voice once he got down to one but then the doors were open and from his position Gabe could see Reinhardt filing out first with his massive shield.

Typical.

Through the open doorways of the room he was flanking, he could also see Ana crouched behind the giant shield, and somewhere above the sounds of Torbjorn’s hammer was already splitting the song of the waves and the cool Gibraltar air.

Jack was nowhere to be seen.

“Move out when they get close to the payload,” Gabe muttered over the com channel as he turned to stealth along the corner of the building in an attempt to position himself behind Reinhardt and Ana as soon as they moved up.

“You got it, boss,” came the affirmative from McCree, who had presumably hidden himself in one of the open doorways on either side of the choke point. Regardless of position, all members of the defense team were meant to have eyes on the payload at all times.

Jack’s mysterious absence was grating on him; usually the Strike Commander was the one poised behind Reinhardt, gun at the ready, strifing this way and that like some deadly snake about to strike. Gabe poked his head round the corner from where he lay in position at the sound of some shots from McCree’s revolver; in an instant he watched a shuriken whizz by and collide with the turret on the second floor of the room that the offense team was moving out of, the very same turret that immediately sighted Gabe and fired beneath the sounds of Torbjorn’s frantic hammering.

Gabe ducked back behind the safety of cover in time to hear the training rounds fly past him. Shit. His position was compromised, now: there was no way that Ana at least wouldn’t be on him in a second if he didn’t move.

“Anyone got eyes on Commander Morrison?” Gabe barked as he ran as noiselessly as he could manage back around the corner and this time darted inside the building and just up the little set of stairs so that he could still see the open doorways on either side of the pod.

The response he got from Genji was: “Negative.”

The response he got from McCree was breathless chuckling, followed by: “If you ain’t seein’ him, _I’m_ not seein’ him, boss.”

“What the _fuck_ does that mean-“ Just in the moment that Gabe was attempting to strangle McCree with words through the mic, he caught a flash of blue and blonde swooping past the doorway to his left, where he had been camped just a few moments before.

His pounding heart leapt into his throat and everything else fell out of focus. Before he knew what he was doing, Gabe was on the run after the super soldier blur. “Got eyes on him. In pursuit. Remain in formation and keep the pressure on.”

Gabe didn’t need to be able to see Jack to follow him; he knew just exactly what the Commander was up to and it made his stomach burn with anger. The little shit was trying to get behind them, gain altitude probably by climbing on top of the command pods scattered about the compound, flick his stupid little visor down and try and sweep the whole team by using his favorite “tactical advantage”.

It made his insides smolder in a way he wasn’t used to: why should he care if Jack was playing the game the way it was meant to be played? Still Gabe was fueled by the thought of pumping so many training rounds into Jack’s back for thinking he could get the jump on Gabe and his team.

Or maybe for last night.

Or maybe for killing him in his dreams so many times.

He followed the blonde beacon up a flight of stairs, and then another, the blue of Morrison’s jacket always just darting out of sight as Gabe rounded another corner; Jack was surprisingly quiet for how quickly he was running but, then again, so was Gabe. The super soldier forgot sometimes that they came from the same basic training.

The stairs put them out on a catwalk that passed over the payload’s pathway, with enough cover on either side that they couldn’t be seen from below. So far McCree, Genji, and the others seemed to be in a push-pull with the offensive team so that neither had been able to hold  any progress made. Gabe knew that if he didn’t take Jack down now, he’d cross the catwalk and loop around to flank the entire Blackwatch team at once. If Gabe could take him out _now_ , it’d win this thing before it had a chance to really start – which wouldn’t be a problem if Morrison hadn’t suddenly disappeared.

Breathing hard at the top of the catwalk, Gabe jogged to the top of the descending stairs on the other side and looked down: nothing. “Damn,” he growled over the sound of gun shots and blades and angry Swedish happening back at the start. His team were holding their own, but for how long?

Gabe was thrust from his calculations as the breath was knocked out of him, his chest slammed against the backside of a synthetic steel pod that was his only cover.

 _Their_ only cover.

Gabe was acutely aware of the body keeping his pinned to the cold metal – even the particular feel of _that_ gun in his back gave his assailant away. That icy gaze was unmistakable, despite how he couldn’t peel his cheek off the pod to turn and look.

“ _That_ was a tactical error.” Jack said it like a proverb, somehow lecturing him even now as he was twisting Gabe’s arm behind his back in a way that had him hissing and swearing under his breath.

“Nice one, _chingado_ ,” Gabe spat the words like poison from his mouth, and somewhere he was trying hard not to notice the way his heart was thumping in his chest like a Bastion unit – firing away against the metal _rat tat tat tat tat_.

Jack let out a breath of exasperated laughter – a _scoff_ \- and then there was a knee between Gabe’s thighs and he made fists with his hands. Inhaled sharply. His earpiece crackled with the sing-song voice of his infinite discontent: “Sounds like you found the boss, _boss_.”

 _McCree_.

The knee between his thighs rocked forward and it turned what had been Gabe’s automatic growl of annoyance into something altogether guttural and in that moment his eyes fluttered shut to miss seeing it when Jack reached forward to switch Gabe’s earpiece off in one smooth gesture.

“ _I think he’s heard enough_.”

Jack was speaking against his skin now, and the gun was gone from its temporary home against his spine, but Gabe didn’t move – just rocked back against Jack’s knee and tried to keep his own from feeling weak.

“ _Jack_.”

Gabe didn’t know why he said it. There wasn’t anything he wanted to say, except: “Fuck you.” He hadn’t _meant_ to say that, but he didn’t regret it. He said it again to prove it: “Fuck you.”

Jack shifted his knee against Gabe’s ass. His lips ghosted against Gabe’s neck.

“Is that what you want to do, Reyes?”

The sudden feeling of a hand on his hip and then Jack’s grip like he was holding his rifle, like he would kill a man for touching it, only it was Gabe’s waist – then his ass, and Jack was pressing against him _hard_ through those stupid fucking blue camo military pants.

Blue like the ocean.

Blue like his eyes.

Blue like the holo-clock.

Gabe searched for words but couldn’t find them, just the breathless groans he had been halfway to making the night before by the time Jack had split on him.

Suddenly the words found _him_ : “Not too late for you, this time?”

Jack’s grip on his ass tightened in response for a second, as if _that_ was an answer, and he released Gabe’s hand apparently so that he’d have a free one himself to slip between Gabe’s belly and the unit he was still pressed up against – a fact Gabe was only too aware of.

The breathing in his ear hitched as if Jack was hesitating, like maybe he _was_ going to fucking take off on him again, a prospect that made Gabe’s fingers curl against the steel like he could puncture it from will alone but before he could do anything else he felt Jack’s teeth on him - on his neck - and his hands which had both moved to Gabe’s hips mirrored his own when they curled into Gabe’s skin so rough he could only curse under his breath and lean against Jack’s body behind his own.

“ _Fuck_ , Jack,” Gabe moaned and it was definitely not a whimper that left him when Jack’s teeth did too, and not a whimper when he said: “Please. _Por favor_.” He felt lips against the shell of his ear, something like a tender kiss pressed to the skin just below it.

Jack’s hands were working on Gabe’s pants in a clumsy way, still pushing sloppy kisses to his ear and neck even as he was yanking Gabe’s clothes away to leave him bare-assed  and exposed to the world if weren’t for the way Jack’s hands were covering him as soon as there was skin to touch.

The adrenaline was shooting through him like a shot in the heart; the feeling of Jack’s hands slipped between his legs from behind had him doing his best to stay standing and he didn’t even notice that Jack had lubed up his fingers until he was pushing a thumb inside of him with practiced ease that made Gabe shiver with satisfaction.

“Mnh- you still carry _that_ with you?” Gabe managed to ask, pushing into Jack’s fingers as he felt more enter him. Once upon a time neither of them left on a training mission without a bottle of lube for the road.

Jack answered with a pointed nip to the back of Gabe’s neck. There was a beat of silence, or the moment stretched as Gabe did, lost in the sweet feeling of it, and then Jack said, “Today I did.”

Gabe gave a half-hearted and breathless chuckle but the sound of Reinhardt’s hammer slamming down some short distance away a second later made his heart leap in his chest again. “ _Dios_ , I just need you to fuck me, Jack.” Gabe reached back with a little effort and gripped a fistful of blonde hair where he could reach. “I just need you to fuck me like you were supposed to last night.”

Jack pulled his fingers out of Gabe, apparently needing both hands to grip at Gabe’s ass and roll over to the front of his hips to take hold of his cock like a shotgun. Like it was _Jack’s_ shotgun.

“Yes,” Jack grumbled into Gabe’s ear, in that particular husky voice he usually issued commands with.

“You do.”

Gabe pressed his head into the pod he’d been ambushed against, grateful to have it to lean up against now as he felt Jack’s slick cock hard and hot and just grinding against him because only Jack fucking Morrison had the balls to tease him at a time like this. “ _Jack_ ,” Gabe hissed with longing, and this time he did fucking whimper when he said again, “ _Por favor_.”

Jack never did turn down a polite request from his fellow commander Reyes.

The feeling of Jack inside him was sweet and perfect, satisfying like a missing piece being put back only _so much fucking better_ because it was _Jack_ fucking him slow and deep and rough here with the ocean air to their backs like a couple of recruits gone AWOL.

Like the world wasn’t at fucking war, still.

Like they had the time and the desire to fuck and that was enough.

At some point Gabe shut his eyes, lost in the feeling of Jack against him and inside him and all around him. His hands were on Gabe’s cock and his teeth sank into him here and there – felt like everywhere. In hindsight, Gabe knew it must have been short; there was only so much time they could fuck on a mission without it catching up to them, but by the time Jack had buried himself deep inside Gabe and was telling him in that scratchy voice, practically dripping with lust, “I want you to come for me, Gabriel,” – well, it could have been a fucking eternity and it wouldn’t have been long enough.

His fingers scratched at nothing on the steel and then one bent up and around and pushed Jack’s already hungry mouth harder into his shoulder as he came, barely aware of Jack’s muffled sounds as he emptied his cock inside Gabe – something he’d have to fucking pay for later.

The two of them performed a hasty clean-up and with a few practiced flicks of some zippers and buttoning of buttons the only evidence left was the exceptionally flushed cheeks on Commander Morrison and the way his cum was currently trickling down Gabe’s leg.

The bite marks would show up later.

It was when Jack went to pick up his pulse rifle that Gabe casually unloaded both his training rounds into his back – one, then the other – and watched with a hidden grin the way Jack was blown to the floor with his rifle still out of reach.

Turning his earpiece back on, Gabe leaned a combat boot on the rifle, and used the other one to push Jack down onto his back the rest of the way.

“Reyes here. Target eliminated. Think we can wrap this up now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay friends but here it is~*~*~ Jack should really watch where he's swooping tbh but I guess as long as Gabe's feeling better maybe we'll find out still why Jack ghosted him the night before rite #swoopingisbad 
> 
> also thank you thank you thank you to everyone leaving kudos and/or comments, bookmarks, and who are passing it on to their friends - y'all are amazing and I can't thank u enough my pals


	5. Army of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabe celebrates under some familiar watchful eyes, and loses himself for the third and final time to the nightmare in his dreams.

Blackwatch’s victory party was, in Angela’s words, a “barbaric, ridiculous display of unnecessary egoism”, followed by what Gabe could only assume was a string of lamentations and cursing in German under her breath, drink in hand – this was how you knew she was having a good time.

In McCree’s words, it was “the best damn fun” he’d had “since whoopin’ the Overwimps’ asses this afternoon” – and Gabe, for once, was inclined to agree with the mouthy cowboy. It had felt _good_ letting those rounds go into Jack’s back – almost as good as Jack fucking him against that trailer did. Maybe _better_ , if he thought too much about it.

After putting Jack down, it was a simple enough trick to take the rest of them out one by one. Without support from their leader, all it took was a little fancy footwork around Reinhardt’s shield and once that was gone the rest fell like training bots or mortar scraps or omnic parts blown to bits.

Gabe took the opportunity to let a little loose – something he rarely did, even during the more peaceful times (whatever those were). But tonight felt different, watching a tipsy Angela accept Torbjorn’s chug-challenge with a beer in one hand and her Caduceus staff in the other to help prop herself up against the canteen wall.

Watching McCree attempt pretending to pay attention to the shuriken-throwing lesson Genji was attempting to give him, as if he wasn’t just using it as an excuse to ogle the cyber-ninja when he was in top form and full of himself off a victory high.

Watching Jack try and smart-ass his way out of answering the question: “So what happened out there?” every time Reinhardt or Ana tried to wile out of him the reason he’d gone dark so fast. Reyes had just got the best of him, Jack finally admitted, too far out of earshot for Gabe to hear himself.

The canteen was small but efficient, a shared space mostly used for meals but on occasions like this they all packed into it and tried to pretend like they weren’t constantly about to knock elbows with almost anyone in these tight quarters. The jukebox that had appeared in it overnight some weeks ago had only made the space shortage worse, but all McCree would do if you asked him about it was kick the thing twice with a wicked grin on his face, prompting some Elvis Presley tune to come wailing out of it (and then predictably start hip thrusting along to the music).

To his commander with the red cheeks and far-off gaze, McCree says loud enough for the room to hear: “Hey _senor jefe_ , nice tac-ti-cal work out there today.” He’s gotten _good_ at his Indiana-born Overwatch Strike Team Commander Jack Morrison impression, enough to make Gabe wince a little – then came the drunken laughter.

Except Jack wasn’t laughing.

In fact, the look he shot McCree was so deadly serious, Gabe couldn’t help but laugh more, his hands on his knees and tears welling up in his eyes. Sometimes the truth _hurts_ , _soldado_. He doesn’t say it, though – just claps Jesse on the back and finds a bottle of tequila being pressed into his hand.

The rest of the night, Gabe can’t share more than two words with his Southern subordinate _vaquero_ without feeling that same heated stare from Jack from somewhere across the little room. The two of them, Gabe and Jack, they exchanged quips and half-hearted jabs all night, playing the parts that their respective teams wanted to see: the golden-haired soldier boy pitted against the notorious fringe-leader.

If Gabe noticed the way Jack’s eyes were all over the bruises on Gabe’s neck, or the way his hands nervously rubbed at the bruised skin on his back, or the way his throat tightened every time Gabe forgot to stop grinning at one of McCree’s stupid lines, he didn’t say anything about it. Definitely he didn’t _do_ anything about it.

By the time Gabe found himself face-down on his own pillow, his head humming from the alcohol in his veins, he had almost totally forgotten to remember the way those blue eyes looked when they looked into his own.

…

It’s darker – or the fire is burning brighter, this time. Retina-burning bright. So bright that Gabe has to look away, but then there’s nowhere else to look. Just blackness – just _blinding_ brightness. The fire is stronger than ever, but Gabe’s not hot.

He’s not _scared,_ even.

He feels Jack beside him, again; like a presence more than a person, again – like a ghost he can’t see, but knows he’s there.

Jack’s there and he’s everywhere too; the omnics are gone and the sounds of gunfire and metal exploding have gone with them. There’s nothing left: just the burning rooftops of a crumbling city, just the blazing inferno of Gabriel’s fear and his hatred and his rage swallowing up every last home.

Every shopfront.

Every fortified fucking castle.

The world moves by him like he’s running, like they’re running together the way they always do in this dream, but he doesn’t feel attached to it the way he should. He’s not the pilot of his body, he’s now just a passenger strapped in as though he’s locked into some nightmarish carnival ride.

Jack’s hand on his arm pulling him, it’s like a lifeline straight to his heart. Like if they went too far apart, it’d pull out, rip the whole thing right out of his chest completely and leave him gaping and open and heartless.

Gabe’s head is like cement and he can’t turn it to look at Jack. The world comes to a stop and something like fireworks shoot off behind him over his head crackling loudly into the sky, the cries of a city decaying beneath itself.

All he wants to do is look at Jack.

All he wants to do is see his face. His _eyes_.

His head is like lead and it’s pinned his chin to his chest so he can see it, this time, when it’s pressed against his heart: the gun. Only it’s different, now – it’s not Jack’s pulse rifle.

It’s _his_ _own_ shotgun. He recognizes it a second too late, because his chin is moving up now against the impossible weight of his body, unbidden, to look the shooter in the face.

“Die,” says the voice, deep and rumbling and loud like it’s coming from under his feet and over his head at the same time, the earth and the sky both on fire and speaking to him from behind a mask.

“Die,” it comes again, louder somehow, and angry. It sounds like his own voice, but it also doesn’t sound like anything he’s ever heard before. The mask is a pristine skeleton white against Eichenwalde burning, against the black hood pulled over it.

In the mask Gabe recognizes a barn owl skull, sees the fire reflected, sees blue eyes reflected, too. Those Gibraltar-ocean, holo-clock, night-camo blue eyes; where his own eyes should have been shining back at him, there _they_ were.

“ _Die!_ ” The word rings out like a commandment over the sound of the shotgun unloading into his chest. The hands that fly up as his body is sent hurtling down, down, down into the smoldering earth, are not his own _either_ , Gabe sees.

They’re Jack’s.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to imagine that Angela gets into kind of a mean-mugging no-nonsense mom mood when they lose but is still having a good time lmao also there MAY be some fluff coming up soon friends to STAY TUNED for some cute husband time (and also more sexy husband time i mean come ON what's all this plot for if not that) p.s. sorry if the dream stuff is cheesy it's just there for the drama and the ambiance orz
> 
> Shout out to everyone who has been keeping up with this and leaving kudos and comments, you are all so amazing and lovely and literally what keeps me going to write these chapters. I just love planning it and bringing it to life for y'all. So thank you thank you thank you for every click. The biggest compliment to receive is to have my work shared, so if you like it please pass it around!


	6. One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Gabe finds himself, finds Jack, and finds out a little bit more of what he knew all along: the two of them are more alike than either of care to articulate.

When Gabe woke breathless, his head dizzy from the threat of a hangover, his mouth dry and his fists twisted in the sheets, _the voice_ was still in his head. Still echoing. That deep, rumbling voice shouting “ _Die!_ ” like he didn’t think about death every other waking moment, anyway.

Fists shaking, Gabe fumbled to his bathroom sink for water. He didn’t need to look in the mirror to know that his shoulders were still heaving as he fought to find reliable breath.

“ _Muerte_ ,” Gabe whispered the word like a plea, like a prayer, his thoughts fuzzy and coming slowly through the adrenaline. Before he knew what he was doing he was out the door, not even bothering to lock it, just – he needed to move.

There was fear now, where there hadn’t been before. Fear of going back to sleep, and waking up in that place again. Fear of seeing that face – that mask again. It was suddenly so hazy in Gabe’s memory; he moved one foot in front of the other through the darkened, quiet hallways of the bunker and tried to put back together the face that he’d seen but it was like trying to re-build a sandcastle on a windy day.

The harder he tried, the more it just blew away from him, but still there was this _fear_ that if he couldn’t remember it, it would come back – or sneak up on him, unnoticed.

His feet came to a door at the same time that a bead of sweat pooled on his eyebrow and threatened to drip. One hand on his forehead, Gabe looked up from where he’d been watching his feet move one after another to see where they had taken him.

But even before he looked up, he knew the answer:

Jack’s room.

The sight of the familiar door confirmed what he already knew, what he’d forgotten he’d known until just this moment, and it made a weak smile appear on his face as he raised his fist to _pound, pound, pound_ on the middle of the door.

 _Fuck, you better be in there, Jack_. _Fuck you if you’re not in there_.

The seconds it took for any sound to be heard on the other side of the door were long enough for Gabe to start to start his “fuck you” mantra over the whirring white-noise sound of his consciousness trying to forcibly go back to disassociating.

Gabriel Reyes was no newcomer to the PTSD-coping rodeo. Sometimes you fought the demons, mostly you just fought yourself.

When the door finally opened and Jack’s face appeared, Gabe had to steady himself on the door frame.

Jack looked tired, like he hadn’t slept a wink. His eyes were wide open, with no sign of fatigue in them if you ignored the dark circles around both. He was in a t-shirt (white, cotton-blend), a pair of boxers (black, freshly washed), and some military-issue gray and white socks, and he was looking at Gabe like Gabe had an arrow sticking out of his forehead.

“…you look like shit.”

Jack had been quiet for too long for this to be his only thought, his only observation, but it made Gabe smirk a little and it made Jack press his lips into a thin line, mere degrees away from frowning at any moment.

“Mmh,” Gabe murmured, wiping the back of his hand across his glistening forehead. “Good enough to have kicked _your ass_ and survived, _cabr_ _ón_.” He tried his best to look smooth and confident from where he stood leaning against the door frame, shirt collar soaked in sweat, his face pale and eyes wild with fear even now.

Jack had reached a full-on frown, and he reached for Gabe’s shoulder and pulled him inside. The door shut behind them with a satisfying _click_ just as Gabe’s hands itched to be somewhere on Jack’s body, to be close enough to feel Jack’s heart beating against his skin, but the desire and the adrenaline and the fear were overwhelming him into a state of paralysis – so he did nothing.

He wanted to do _everything_ , so what he did was nothing except stand with his back to Jack’s bed, his thoughts racing so fast they had become a white noise of humming nothingness that let nothing through.

All he did was notice how close to identical Jack’s room was to his own. Had it always been that way? Aside from the boots by the door, and the way that he kept his holo-clock on the opposite side of the bed than Gabe, the two rooms looked nearly exactly alike. Which was to say that they were clean, organized, hardly lived-in.

Ready to evacuate at any time.

Ready to disappear without a trace.

Years of military training prepared them to never leave a mark on any single thing – other than the enemy.

Jack’s hand on Gabe’s shoulder felt like something warm and steady pressing him down to the ground, keeping him here, keeping him still, so that when it was gone suddenly Gabe felt the panic in his stomach start to bubble up again. He was awake, now – he _knew_ that – but it didn’t seem to matter to the anxiety running through his body like a fucking poison.

Luckily in the next moment Jack returned from the bathroom with a glass of water which he pushed into Gabe’s hand.

“Drink,” he said in his Commander Morrison voice, and Gabe drank.

“Sit,” he said next, and dropped his hands on Gabe’s shoulders heavy and final, so Gabe sat down on the bed behind him.

Gabe didn’t know what Jack was thinking, and didn’t try to figure it out. The glass was cold in his hand that had gone damp from perspiration without him noticing. He brought it to his lips a second time before the shame set in.

He shouldn’t have come here, _definitely_ shouldn’t have knocked, even if Jack _wasn’t_ sleeping it wasn’t his place to do it and-

“Stop it,” Jack said in his farm-boy Jack voice. He had apparently been watching Gabe from where he’d sat next to him, watching his face for the past few seconds while Gabe had rationalized all the ways he was wrong to be here.

Gabe wasn’t sure what to say – or if there even _was_ anything to say. So he just took another sip, and reached to put the glass down on the nightstand. It didn’t even occur to him to wonder how Jack knew what he’d been doing in his head, or that he needed to be told to knock it off before it snowballed out of his control. He barely trusted his own self to combat his anxious thoughts, how could he expect anyone else to step in?

Looking at Jack looking at him, Gabe didn’t feel uncomfortable and choked the way he did when most everyone else looked at him. Jack’s eyes on him didn’t feel like a judgment, or an expectation to be or act a certain way. The eyes of the world all felt like cameras, measuring his movements, recording him like data. Jack watching him was just … Jack.

… even if Jack was still holding his lips together in that frustrated thin line of concern that he always wore when he was thinking _tactically_.

Maybe that was how Jack knew when Gabe was thinking too much. Did he have a tell? Did he make a face? Probably. _Had to be_.

They sat like that for what felt like an eternity before Jack finally sighed all at once and laid back on the bed, still facing Gabe, still watching his expression. He put an arm behind his head, and opened the other one towards Gabe where he still sat.

“C’mere,” Jack grumbled, jerking his head towards the empty space he’d made with his open arm. “Don’t make me drag you over here, Reyes.”

Gabe was crawling over to him before he even thought twice about it, honestly. He settled easily underneath Jack’s arm, his head on the blonde’s shoulder, eyes settling on his neck.

His shirt collar.

His chest.

Gabe felt Jack’s hand close lightly on his forearm where he lay nestled against him and with it he finally, _finally_ , felt the invisible fist on his heart begin to open.

Against the cotton of Jack’s shirt, with his cheek pushed up against him, looking down at his legs and the one leg Gabe has looped over them, Gabe said, “Must have been sleep-walking or something.”

“We need to put cameras up in there? Keep an eye on you?” There was the faintest hint of a smile in Jack’s speech. Gabe didn’t look up to try and catch it, just moved a hand to fiddle with the hem of Jack’s shirt idly.

“Like there aren’t a bunch up already.”

Gabe knew better than to think that Overwatch trusted the Blackwatch team – shit, there were probably some in the Strike Commander’s room, too. Military operations of any kind just didn’t work any other way in this day and age. There was no privacy, no secrets, only intel to be negotiated for.

Gabe felt the rumble of Jack’s soft laughter and it made him lick his lips and pull a little harder at the shirt he was messing with like he was some nervous private holed up in the barracks again, waiting to be discovered.

But he wasn’t.

 _And they weren’t_.

The realization settled over him like cool water poured down his shoulders: in these moments, under the light of Jack’s bedside lamp, they weren’t anything except two humans, together. No one was going to bust in on them – the threat of an omnic strike wasn’t any bigger now than it had been twelve hours ago, twenty hours ago, two-hundred hours ago.

If there was any peace on earth left to find, anymore, it was here, and now, and Gabe slipped his hand under Jack’s shirt and over the warm skin there like he would with any lover, like he had the _right_ to. Jack’s response was a low murmur and Gabe felt him turn so that his chin was over Gabe’s head, and the thumb on Gabe’s arm where Jack had his hand started to make little circles on his skin.

“Feeling better?” Jack asked, suddenly but almost hushed – in a voice meant for Gabe and only Gabe.

“Feeling great,” Gabe answered with a half-smile, his fingers spreading out over Jack’s stomach and then going up, up, up over his chest and playfully pushing his thumb over what he knew to be a pink little nipple for punctuation. “ _Muy bien._ ”

Jack hissed a little as he inhaled sharply, followed by a lazy chuckle that had Gabe turning his head up so he could press his lips against the Strike Commander’s Adam’s apple as it bobbed in his throat. Jack smelled like body wash and laundry soap, squeaky clean with a hint of alcohol on his breath from earlier this evening. He leaned into it, placing lazy kisses against his skin while the hand under Jack’s shirt continued to explore with idle affections.

He could have gone on like this for a while, really, and Gabe would have if Jack hadn’t put a hand on his jaw, shifted from under him, and tilted his chin up to kiss his lips with casual ease, like they could kiss like this anytime and he had just _chosen_ to make it happen.

Gabe leaned into the kiss, smiling a little despite himself against Jack’s lips. He took his time savoring it, sucking softly on Jack’s bottom lip here and there, teasing him now with his tongue before going back to kissing him sweetly.

There was so much to be said between them, but kissing like this was enough. More than enough; it was better than words. As Gabe rolled more onto his stomach and into Jack’s lap, he poured all his desperation for comfort into the kiss, all his gratitude for Jack being there to open the door, all his raw fucking fear that this kiss or the next might be the last.

It was enough to be close like this, a moment he could hang onto and chase, a feeling of Jack’s tongue in his mouth and of his hands on Gabe’s waist and of his skin under Gabe’s fingers so soft and scarred and alive and _here._

_Now._

_Not in my dreams_ , Gabe thought as he pushed Jack’s shirt up and bent down from where he was straddling him now to kiss and suck at his chest.

 _Not in my nightmares._ He nipped softly at Jack’s skin, taking one pink nipple into his mouth and teasing it with his teeth. Jack groaned and Gabe felt fingers pass over the back of his neck at the base of his head.

 _Not in the past_. Gabe moved his trail of kisses farther down Jack’s body, just nuzzling at that little strip of blonde trailing away from Jack’s navel.

_Right now._

He had sunk between Jack’s legs like it was something natural for him, and where his hands had been holding Jack’s sides they now moved together between his thighs and over the tops of them, pushing them apart in tandem.

Gabe didn’t need to pass a hand over Jack’s crotch to know he was already half-hard and on his way to something better. He glanced up at the blonde who was watching him, the way Gabe knew he would be, those ocean-blue eyes showing him sunny weather and clear skies even now.

“Fuck, Jack,” Gabe breathed, his attention back on the bulge in Jack’s boxer-briefs in such a way that he couldn’t help himself from nuzzling it through the fabric, kissing the outline of his erection softly, affectionately. This won him a shaking sigh from Jack who was propped up on his elbows now, watching Gabe from behind half-shut eyes.

That was enough to bring Gabe’s smile back, and he hid it from Jack reflexively, not minding apparently that doing so had him head down, virtually grinning _at Jack’s dick_ like it had told him something clever. Gabe licked his lips, trying to lick the smirk off his face, and when that didn’t work he instead went to kiss at the inside of Jack’s thigh.

Actual access to the skin there required Gabe to push the fabric of Jack’s briefs up, and as he did so there was revealed to him two sets of round rose-shaped bruises: one purple-blue, the other a faded greenish-yellow.

Gabe was already kissing at his skin, over the marks and around them, before it occurred to him: _those were hickies._

He stopped – pulled back as his brain kick-started – it was _okay_ that they were hickies, Jack was allowed to have his thighs sucked by whoever he wanted –

“Mmh,” Jack grunted impatiently. Gabe moved a hand to palm at Jack’s straining dick through his shorts and continued his internal inquest:

\- by whoever he _wanted_ it was just that these … these looked _familiar._ Not just the hickies themselves, but the location specifically. Warm and biting right on that inner thigh, right where –

_The sound of the shower echoed in his head. The smell of cigars and leather. A Southern drawl like a cicada in his ears and someone sucking and biting on his thigh._

“You fucked _McCree_?!”

Gabe’s head flew up and he involuntarily squeezed both hands – and the one on Jack’s cock elicited a rather throaty moan like Gabe hadn’t heard in a while before Jack managed to talk.

“I – _what_?”

“You! You fucked McCree!”

It wasn’t anger in Gabe’s voice, mostly shock, maybe a little amusement, but mostly, yeah – mostly _shock_ that the fucking _vaquero_ had managed to sweet-talk Jack into the sheets and apparently _more than once_ by the looks of it. He sat there between Jack’s legs, hand still squarely on the Strike Commander’s erection, looking incredulous if not a little entertained.

“…it’s the _fucking hickies_ , isn’t it?” Jack hissed, and he let his head roll backwards from where he sat propped up by his elbows so that he was sighing at the ceiling. He sounded like something deflating from the inside out, though his dick hadn’t gotten that memo yet.

“ _Bingo._ ” Gabe moved to pinch the bruised skin on Jack’s thigh playfully. “I can’t fucking believe you, Morrison.”

“ _You did too!_ ” Jack suddenly shot back, his gaze back on Gabe but this time fixed and accusing, his expression entirely too serious given the situation in true Jack Morrison styling.

Gabe was only confused for a second as he thought back to the night that Jack had ghosted him – how he’d gotten just about down to his bare thighs when he’d bailed. How the lighting was so bad that night under the blue glow of the holo-clock and the spotlights barely peaking in from outside that only a _fucking super soldier_ would have been able to see them on Gabe’s already dark skin.

Suddenly Gabe found himself shaking with laughter – somehow Jesse McCree had been laying _both of them_ on the side and it was only now, in the middle of the night, with Gabe’s hand on Jack’s dick and only an hour or so post-PTSD-nightmare, it was only _now_ that they’d figured it out.

What made it worse was Jack’s face – the guy looked genuinely put out, and he huffed at Gabe: “You don’t think you could take your hand off my dick when you laugh at me, Gabriel?” His sincere malcontent somehow just made it funnier.

When Gabe leaned upward to kiss at Jack’s bottom lip, he only pushed his hand harder onto Jack’s erection, only rubbed it slower as he slid his hand upward. “Aw, c’mon, _soldado_. _Qu_ _é pasa?_ ” Gabe teased, kissing at his lover’s pouting lips.

“He’s a little charming, you’ve got to admit.” Gabe was surprised at the way he felt Jack’s cock twitch when he said this, but it only made him smirk that much more. “ _Someone_ will admit it, anyway.” Gabe wanted to ask: is that why you were weird that night? Did it make you _jealous_? _Did you think about me when you were fucking him?_

But he didn’t. Because they didn’t talk about those things, they just did this: teased, and fucked, and watched each other’s backs.

Jack made a sound that started as a grumble and morphed into something breathless, but he didn’t say anything until Gabe had started to make his descent back down Jack’s torso.

Then: “I don’t know how it happened. I just went to _talk_ with him. He’s been making passes at me for weeks and-“

Gabe was already back with his head between Jack’s legs and he pushed his forehead into that bruised thigh and kissed at it, trying not to laugh, remembering Jack’s face when he laughed at him a minute ago and then having to try _harder_.

“It’s okay,” Gabe reassured him, though he wasn’t sure what about exactly, his hands moving to tug instructively at Jack’s waistband and the blonde commander lifted his hips in response so that Gabe could pull those fucking briefs off. “It’s just his way, Jack. Must’ve been pretty good, if you went back for seconds.”

Okay, so he probably could have _not_ said that part, but it was too good. Gabe was still smirking to himself while he wrapped a hand around Jack’s dick as it bobbed up to greet him. He pressed a kiss to the base of it and took his time tasting it with his tongue, savoring the sweet-salty taste that he knew so well.

The hiss he got in response was more than any words could do – somehow simultaneously it was a “shut up” and a “fuck that’s good” in a way Jack didn’t need to explain for Gabe to understand. The same way he didn’t need to ask to get Jack’s boxers off, the way he didn’t need to apologize for showing up in the middle of the night.

It was always like this.

 _It would always be like this_.

Later, Gabe would try and extricate details from Jack on the _what’s_ and the _where’s_ of his little trysts with Jesse McCree – he was pretty sure Jack wouldn’t give him the _how’s_ or more importantly the _why’s_ , but all he wanted was a little context.

It sure as shit explained McCree acting even _weirder_ than usual around the both of them.

For now it was easy to push it all aside, even the little colorful bruises winking at him out of the corner of his eye weren’t enough to get Gabe’s attention from running his tongue up the length of Jack’s cock and sweetly sucking at the head.

It was sloppy work; Jack Morrison’s super soldier dick made some of the most pre-cum Gabe had ever seen, and his chin was practically dripping by the time he had the thing mostly in his mouth, one hand stroking what his throat couldn’t reach yet.

Gabe didn’t need to have seen Jack’s erect cock pre-super-soldier-enhancement to tell you it made it bigger because _it definitely made it bigger –_ and not just bigger as in “longer” but thicker, with a head as pink as Jack’s flushed cheeks.

“Gabe-“ Jack groaned his name, blue eyes shut when Gabe glanced up at his face. Which was completely un-fucking-acceptable.

Moaning a little around Jack’s head, he could _feel_ Jack’s eyes snapping open as he moved down his cock slowly, carefully, relaxing until he felt that familiar bob of skin on the back his throat. He looked up – there was Jack, gazing down at him, his face flushed and expression drunk on lust. There was nothing, no one else in the world right now.

“Fuck, Gabriel, look at you-“ Jack groaned but he couldn’t finish the sentence if he had planned on finishing it at all, his hips twitching and his head falling back with the desperate moan that came from his lips after that. “I’m so close- I can’t- _looking at you like that_ -“

Gabe would have smiled were his mouth not so fucking full – instead he just hummed with approval around Jack’s cock, his head bobbing rhythmically with the sound and grateful because even if Jack couldn’t watch, _Gabe still could_.

And he did as he reached with one hand to slip beneath Jack’s ass and trail his fingers down, brushing against him and lingering there for a second before continuing on to cup the commander’s balls and press a thumb against the base of his cock. His eyes were watering a bit from the exertion, and he could feel driblets of pre-cum or spit or both rolling down his throat but none of that mattered now.

“’m- ‘m gonna come, Gabe, ‘m gonna-“ Jack babbled somewhere above Gabe and it caused him to hum louder against him, _come for me baby, please_ , he wanted to say, but he couldn’t so he just _showed_ Jack how badly he wanted it, loudly and with enthusiasm until-

Jack came hard in his mouth, so that Gabe was half-way to choking when he finally finished. At some point Jack’s hand had come down on Gabe’s head – not forcefully, just holding him, just feeling him there, but his fingers had curled into his skin and it wasn’t until they uncurled that Gabe sat up and went to wipe his mouth clean.

Gabe rolled his shoulders and gave the bruises on Jack’s thigh a gentle little pat as he licked his lips, stretched his jaw, and watched Jack try to catch up with his own breath there on his back with one hand still twisted in the sheets. The smug smile on his own face was well-earned, Gabe felt, so he didn’t try and hide it this time.

“You back on earth yet, _soldado_?” Gabe asked or rather purred, sitting himself on Jack’s leg so that his knee was between those naked thighs. He felt entirely too clothed, but it was easy enough to pull his own shirt off and cast it aside for now.

“In a second,” Jack breathed, his eyes still closed, and Gabe took the opportunity to move forward, to lean up and put his hands on either side of Jack’s head where he lay.

“One,” Gabe counted the second in Jack’s ear, and then he was kissing him again, ravenous and greedy. Jack’s hands were on his waist and the fires of Eichenwalde were far, far away. Gabe would be sleeping here tonight, his head close to Jack’s and empty of nightmares.

It would always be like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE omg it's DONE i can't believe it?! I honestly can't believe how fast I got these last bits up but y'all motivated me to get through it and it was actually just super fun to write. I love these silly guys. Thank you again, for the millionth time, for reading, for commenting, for leaving kudos, for sharing, it seriously means so much to me and is the number one reason why I keep writing these.
> 
> THAT BEING SAID...................
> 
> I was KIND OF thinking about doing a companion piece for this fic and wanted to know what you all thought about that? I thought I might write, basically the same little time period but from Jack's p.o.v? It would probably be the same or similar number of chapters, and we'd get to follow him with his interactions w/McCree and then re-live some of the stuff with Gabe but distinctly thru Jack's emotional navigation. 
> 
> If I *do* that, I was alllllllllllsoooo kind of considering doing like a capstone epilogue McReyes76 threesome because ... why not, basically. Lmao. 
> 
> SO LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE THOUGHTS ON THIS. does this excite u would u be happy to read this?? if not that's OKAY either way i had so much fun and i'm super proud of myself for finishing yet another series so again just thanks for all your clicks and your time you lot are the best <3


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